Cold
by katie janeway
Summary: It was the shivering that got his attention.


_Witch Hunter Robin and its characters are the property of Sunrise and Bandai. _

What got his attention was her shivering. Or, rather, Robin's attempts to hide her shivers. She crossed her legs, clenched them together, and hunched her shoulders. He watched as she folded herself together as tightly as she could in her chair, and frowned. From her own grimaces, it wasn't working.

"If you're cold, Robin, there is a thermostat."

Robin jumped at the sound of Amon's voice. She opened her mouth to reply, then closed it, not trusting herself to control her chattering teeth long enough to make a coherent response. She simply nodded, and crossed the room to the thermostat, and cranked it up roughly ten degrees.

That would make the room temperature eighty degrees when it warmed up. Warm up it did, but she still shivered when she went to bed that night, and pulled her quilt over herself.

Robin increased the thermostat's temperature again the next day, and the next, though only in five degree implements. Still, she shivered.

Amon observed this silently as it progressed, considering their options. If Robin was ill, then this would pass. If she were anemic, a change in their diet should suffice. He'd already ruled out a problem with the heating system.

He refused to consider what it meant if Robin's chill were either a more severe health problem, or a result of mental distress.

That is, until the day the thermostat was lowered, and he saw she was still shivering. She had done it for his comfort, and not her own. This came after he'd subtly changed their diet to include more iron, and it'd been too long for a mere cold.

"Robin. This is getting ridiculous."

She nodded mutely; hugging herself against the chill he suspected only she could feel. She turned to leave the room, and he grabbed her arm, intending to make her stay. He hadn't planned on her attempts to pull his hand away, forcing him to note the chill in her fingers.

"Your hands are cold," he noted absently, staring at the girl before him. She was wrapped in several layers, and yet clearly wasn't comfortable.

"Are they?" Robin asked softly. "I...don't really feel it anymore."

Without thinking, he took both her hands and began to rub them between his own. A hint of warmth returned to them, but Robin eventually pulled her hands away. "It's not helping," she said sadly. "I don't think..."

"Robin..."

She smiled sadly. "It's alright, Amon."

"It is not "alright," Robin," he said harshly. "I am your guardian. You have clearly endangered your health by not making me aware of your symptoms." He still refused to believe it was mental. He could perhaps bribe a doctor into treating Robin in one or two visits...but a psychologist would take far longer. And to trust a Witch of Robin's power to be controlled by a psychiatrist's preferred drug of choice, not to mention the difficulties in maintaining a supply of  
the drug...

Robin tugged away from him as he grew distracted. "I'm sorry, Amon. I didn't mean to cause trouble." 

He grabbed at her hand again, refusing to let her escape, but stopped just short of doing so. Something strange was happening. Robin was paler than he could recall her being only moments ago. She was ill, severely so, and she hadn't told him. He stifled a curse, and turned to search for his keys. "Get ready. We're going to the hospital."

He didn't expect to hear the sound of something shattering behind him. Whirling about, expecting to see Robin staring at some trinket she'd perhaps knocked to the floor, he didn't believe the sight before him.

Shards of..._ice_. He blinked. Looked again. Ice. And the ice had come from..._where was Robin_?

His brain refused to comprehend the solution it found. Nothing like that could happen. Even _if_ this were the result of a Craft...of an attack with slow, lasting effects...it was too preposterous!

"Robin," he said, futilely, staring about. "What is the meaning of this?"

He heard nothing, at least...for a moment, he thought he'd detected a slight sigh, but it felt wrong. More like an echo of what he expected to hear, rather than the thing itself.

"Robin..." he said again, unsure now, of what to do. He knelt, touching the ice, feeling its cold seep into him.

And he shivered as he woke, slowly, from the dream that had overcome him. Instinctively, he looked across to the other bed in the room, and once more felt the cold settle over him.

Robin was gone. As she had been for some time now, since shortly after their flight from Japan. He shivered, feeling the cold of the dream sweep over him again, and fell to the floor in his haste to leave the bed for a drink. He had to let her go. But he couldn't. Nor could he make her warm again.


End file.
